Chicken and Potatoes over Sautéed Spinach

Tonight I made this recipe from Cooking Light.

I actually made it over spinach and kale 'cause I had a bunch of kale trying to go to seed in the garden. That meant that I had to steam the kale a bit, just because it takes longer to cook than spinach.

I also forgot to take a photograph of this one; but I really don't think it would have photographed well. It didn't look amazing.

And, initially, it didn't taste amazing. The first bite of chicken was a bit bland, as was the first of potato. But then, a taste of the broth, and the dish came alive. The broth had all the concentrated flavors of onion and ginger, of five-spice powder and sherry. Pretty soon my mouth was burning, in a really good way.

This taste very different than anything I've made before, probably a result of the five-spice powder. There was a bit of licorice to it (from the anise in the powder), which was really interesting. I'll make it again.

peace of Christ to you,
Jessica

alterations:
-I took the ends of the green onions and the skin of the ginger and boiled them from a couple of hours, then took the resulting veggie broth, salted it with boullion, and used that in place of the chicken broth. Yum.
-I used a bunch of green onions in the place of each leek, 'cause the ranch market was out of leeks.
-I didn't peel the potatoes. Why throw out all those good vitamins and all that good fiber?
-added kale, as mentioned above.

Orange Chicken: Cooking Light

Tonight, I made this Orange Chicken recipe from Cooking Light. This is actually one of their "reader recipes", sent in by reader Deborah Eckroat.



Immediate plus? Short ingredient list. Second immediate plus? Getting to pound chicken flat with my husband's rubber mallet! (And he bought it thinking it'd be used for carpentry - ha!)



The above picture is the orange sauce (just orange juice and white wine) simmering itself away into a reduction. The sauce is to be poured over the dredged, cooked and sliced chicken meat:



Verdict? Very yummy. Even approved by my greasy-takeout-orange-chicken-loving husband. (I pulled this recipe out because I knew he liked the flavors in it.)

Next time I make it, I think I'll toss the chicken slices with the sauce, instead of serving the sauce alongside to be poured over the chicken slices. But certainly repeatable.

-Jess

Alterations:
-I used chicken thighs rather than chicken breasts. What can I say? They're cheaper.
-I used canola oil instead of the olive oil and butter because I was, um, out of olive oil and unfrozen butter. (Last of the soft butter went into the rice I was cooking to go with the chicken.)
-I doubled the amount of sauce; probably a wise decision, though it did leave us with more sauce than chicken.